by Lori Devoti
He twisted his head toward his tail and the hand that held that syringe. His teeth sank into flesh. Fresh flesh. Living human flesh.
The doctor screamed and tried to jerk back, but Caleb didn’t let go, wouldn’t let go. He pulled harder, felt muscle and skin pull free from bone. The doctor screamed again. His face white and his eyes huge, he staggered backward. The syringe fell to the ground and spun across the floor, unbroken.
Caleb leaped, but three zombies threw their bodies in front of him. One grabbed him around the neck and lifted him off the ground. He flung his weight back and forth, shoved his feet into the creature’s face and tore at its features.
But the monster showed no reaction. Its eyes, hollow and lifeless, stared back at Caleb.
He could hear the doctor’s crepe-soled shoes squeaking over the floor and knew the man he wanted to kill—had to kill—was escaping.
Then Samantha was beside him. He could feel her, smell her. He tried to yell at her, tell her to run, but his voice came out a bark and he knew his efforts were wasted.
She picked up a tray and swung it double handed at the zombie who held him. The creature froze, but only for a second and then it returned to squeezing Caleb’s neck. The other stood motionless beside it, watching Caleb’s life being squeezed from his body, waiting for his corpse to fall.
“Hey, braineaters, hungry?” Samantha yelled from only a few feet away. From the corner of his eye, Caleb could see her and the scalpel she held. As he watched, she slashed down, slicing into her own skin. Blood spurted, and the zombie who held him dropped him onto the floor.
No! It was the only thought Caleb could form. He leaped again, this time making contact with the creature’s neck. Frenzied, desperate to protect the woman he loved, he slashed his teeth through the zombie’s rotting flesh, turned and attacked the monster beside it and then the third. He twirled, his teeth snapping, his body moving as fast as he could, never aiming, just taking out as much of the monsters as he could until their legs could no longer support them and they fell to their knees. Covered in blood, he kept moving. He couldn’t bring himself to stop. “Caleb?”
Samantha’s voice pulled him out of his fog. Thinking he’d done it again, shown her how much of monster he was, he looked up.
She was standing only a few feet away, her eyes wide and her face drawn in shame…and behind her, holding the scalpel to her throat, was the doctor.
“I can’t let you destroy them. They gave themselves to me, trusted me.” The doctor’s voice shook, but his hand was still, too still. “I promised to take care of them.”
“Like you took care of Allison?” Samantha whispered.
The doctor jabbed the surgical instrument against her skin. A tiny line of blood flowed over its silver tip. “Allison was different. Allison betrayed me, betrayed all of us, but still I gave her what others pay for, beg for. Even with her betrayal, I didn’t hurt her. He did.” Hatred flowed from the doctor. “He hurts all of them.”
Still in his wolf form, Caleb slid his feet backward, tried to position himself to leap.
The doctor noticed his movement and angled his head. “Shift. I want to see it.”
Willing to do anything that would buy him time to think, Caleb complied. This change was slower and more painful than the last, but still faster than any before that. Since he had met Samantha, admitted to himself that he cared for her, each shift had been easier. His wolf was calmer and this was his payment.
Too bad he wasn’t in a position to celebrate the improvement.
Naked and human, he stood there. He was unarmed, no human weapon and not a wolf, either.
The doctor seemed to recognize this. He let out a breath, seemed to relax. “Pick up the chain.” He motioned to the pile of silver forgotten on the floor.
Caleb hesitated. The doctor moved as if to stab Samantha again. With a nod, Caleb walked to the chain and bent to pick it up. Samantha made a noise, but it was cut off. Not wanting her to do or say anything that would encourage the doctor to hurt her, Caleb scooped up the length of chain. It burned his skin, but the pain was tolerable. He blinked, wondering at the change.
“Now wrap it around yourself,” the doctor ordered. Realizing he was risking tipping the man off to his increased tolerance, Caleb draped the chain over his shoulder, cringing as he did. Shoulders hunched, he shuffled to the side then stumbled. On his knees and less than a foot now from where the syringe filled with medicine lay, he looked up. “Let her go,” he said, his voice soft and, he hoped, weak.
The doctor stared down at him, his face drawn in a caricature of concern. “I wish I could, but it’s obvious you don’t understand the importance of my research, don’t understand how important it is that you work with—”
Caleb lunged forward, picked up the syringe and drove the needle into the other man’s thigh.
The doctor froze, every muscle in his body doing as Caleb’s had, constricting, but the doctor didn’t recover. There were no tremors. His muscles just quit moving, his chest quit moving. His mouth was open as if he were going to object, but no noise, not even a gurgle, came from his throat.
Caleb glanced at Samantha. “Leave,” he said. He kept his gaze hard, demanding.
He knew she’d seen him kill before, both as a wolf and a man. He knew she’d said she accepted him, but he also knew when presented with the blatant evidence of what he was she would change her mind. She’d run, not just from the doctor and zombies, but from him, too. He was simply saving her the trouble of having to do it.
She took a step back, out of the doctor’s reach. Then with her gaze on Caleb, she said, “Kill him.”
There was no fear in her eyes, no horror. She knew what Caleb was and what she was asking him to do.
He turned to face the doctor.
Caleb didn’t shift. He didn’t want this death to be the product of a frenzied wolf attack. He wanted to make sure the doctor knew why he was dying and that there would be no life after for him. The poison moving through his body might be changing the man into a zombie, but it would never get the chance to fully make its transformation.
The serum would never make anyone into a zombie again, not after Caleb found whatever supplies there were and destroyed them.
But first, he had to destroy the man who had created it.
The doctor teetered in place. Halfway between life and death, he couldn’t fight, couldn’t even object as Caleb plucked a scalpel from a tray and spun him around. His arm wrapped around the doctor’s neck, Caleb whispered in his ear.
“Now is the time to pray. Time to pray there is no life after death…not for you.” Then he shoved the sharp tip into the base of the doctor’s neck and twisted.
All rigidity left the man’s body, now nothing more than a corpse. Caleb straightened his arm and let it fall onto the gore-covered floor of the lab.
Samantha’s gaze was locked onto the body and Caleb’s was locked onto her. There was disgust in her eyes. Caleb saw it, recognized it, accepted it.
Thinking she could get past what he was had been insane.
Not wanting to see that look directed at him, he took a step and turned to the side. “There’s money in the car. I hid it in a slit in the upholstery. You’ll find it there. Use it to get away.”
He closed his eyes and waited for the sound of the door opening, of her running, but the only noises were her breaths, soft and even. Then inexplicably she moved closer until her hand brushed his bare arm.
“Are you telling me to leave? I’ll understand if you do. I know I’m not what you want—not a werewolf—but…” Her hand moved away and she turned back toward the door.
Unable to believe what he had heard, Caleb lifted his gaze to her. She stood a foot away, her lower lip trembling and her eyes huge. She looked…scared.
Scared that he didn’t want her? Hope flickered in his chest. He raised his hand, then lowered it again. He’d made a choice twenty years ago, known full well what the cost of that choice would be. He didn’t deserve to
find a way out of it now.
She took a step toward him. “Caleb?” Then her face folding, she moved to turn away.
With a growl, he jerked her against his chest and brushed her hair away from her face. “I don’t want a werewolf. I don’t want anything…except you.”
Her eyes glimmering, she placed her palm against his cheek. “That’s funny, because that’s all I have to give.”
He didn’t wait for her to say more, didn’t need to hear more. He captured her mouth with his.
She was his, forever.
Epilogue
C aleb and Samantha returned to the camp. It was deserted, or so Caleb thought at first.
Jake, Anita’s second-in-command, was sitting on one of the rocks that formed the edge of the fire pit.
“Anita?” Caleb asked.
What happened to her wasn’t any of his business, but he had to ask. Samantha had filled him in on what had occurred after she had left the cave.
The pack wouldn’t survive without an alpha. They depended on someone strong to lead them, to keep order. A pack of rogues could be as dangerous as the zombies.
“Gone. She’s on her way to Canada. She can join a pack there, take a more submissive role without losing face.”
“Will she?” Samantha asked.
Jake stared at Caleb. They both knew the answer. If she didn’t, if she tried to do there what she had done here, she wouldn’t be relocated. She would be exterminated.
“We need an alpha,” Jake offered.
Samantha’s hand tightened on Caleb’s arm. She had told him Jake thought he was the wolf for the job. What she hadn’t told Caleb was how she felt about that.
“Yes, you do,” he replied.
“You’re the likely candidate.”
Caleb laughed. “You think? I doubt many others would agree.”
Jake’s gaze stayed steady. “They’d be afraid not to. You’re the strongest. We all know it.”
“Strength isn’t enough. There has to be desire, too, and dedication.”
“You know what will happen if we don’t have an alpha.”
Caleb did, but he had other concerns, too. He had Samantha now.
“What? What will happen?” she asked.
Jake’s gaze slid to Caleb before answering. When Caleb didn’t object, he answered. “Fights. Some will go rogue, maybe attack humans. Wolves need a leader…a leader they know no one else can beat.”
Her fingers moved again, pressed briefly against Caleb’s skin. “And you think Caleb can stop that?”
Jake nodded. “I know it.”
She turned then, so she was staring at Caleb, as if it was just the two of them completely alone. “I’m studying to be a nurse. You know that.”
Caleb stiffened. They hadn’t talked about how Samantha’s plans for her future might interfere with being with him.
“I wouldn’t be much of a nurse if something I did endangered others, would I?”
Afraid he knew where this was going, Caleb didn’t reply.
She turned to face Jake. “Which cabin is ours?”
“Which—” Caleb stared at the woman he loved. “You mean you want to stay here? You want to run the camp?”
Rising on her tiptoes, she pressed her lips against his. “I want to be with you, and you need to be here. So, I’ll be here, too.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and looked over her head at Jake. “For a while, until the challenges are done. That’s all I’ll agree to.” Samantha wasn’t a werewolf and while she thought she’d be okay living like one, Caleb had his doubts. And nothing was more important than Samantha. Nothing.
With the pack business taken care of, Jake loaded his SUV and drove off. He would get word out to the pack. Before the next full moon everyone would know of the change.
“Will they miss the money?” Samantha asked.
Caleb shrugged. “I doubt it. From what I’ve seen Anita is the only one who really benefitted from it.”
“So, no more recruits?”
Caleb shook his head. “I never understood that. Becoming a werewolf shouldn’t be like joining a gym. No one should be sold on doing it.”
Samantha was quiet for a moment. “How about the zombies? There are more somewhere, aren’t there?”
Caleb pulled her tight against his body. “There must be. The lab is still out there.”
“Maybe the pack can help with that,” Samantha said.
“The pack?”
“Killing zombies. They’re all werewolves.”
Caleb squeezed her again and pressed a kiss to her temple. The pack, of course. He wasn’t alone anymore—not as a hunter and not in life.
He would never be alone again.
And he would, with Samantha’s and the pack’s help, rid the world of zombies once and for all.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6043-0
ZOMBIE MOON
Copyright © 2010 by Lori Devoti
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